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Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Philip Seymour Hoffman – A Man, Not An Addict

This week the world was rocked when the death of another great actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, was announced. It quickly became even more saddening to realize he’d died of a drug overdose.

Since then, the online world has been abuzz with tributes to his mighty work as an actor. And he truly was amazing at his craft. Someone who excelled in the arts and seemed to take his job seriously. We love great storytellers like Hoffman, because they help us understand what it is to be human—in all its glory and grit. Mr. Hoffman was fine actor and should be remembered for the fantastic contributions he made to the craft.

I’ve also seen a shocking number of callous observations about his death. Many people feel it comes as no surprise, that he brought it upon himself because of his addictions. This negative kind of sentiment troubles me on a personal level.

As an adoptive mother of a son whose birth-parents are lifelong addicts, it’s incredibly important to remember that behind the addiction, there is a person. A soul deserving of love, attention, care, and respect. The addiction often overtakes this personhood, and we forget exactly who it is there underneath. Just as Mr. Hoffman can not solely be defined as an actor, his memory should not be solely tainted by the stigma of addiction. We are all people. And we all have ways to deal with the pain of this world, some ways more healthy or destructive than others.

There are a myriad of components that go into the formation of a man or a woman. Our souls are complex and beautiful and dark and light; all at the same time. My wish is that when one of the greats, like Philip Seymour Hoffman, succumbs to something like addiction, all of us left here reeling would remember that he was a man, not an addict. The addiction is not something we can judge. Instead, it should be worthy of our action. His death should propel the world into creating better care for those suffering with addictive behavior, fostering more support groups and treatment centers, funding research about breaking addictive habits, and so forth—we should come together around those who need our help.

Mr. Hoffman’s family will surely not be remembering him as an addict. They will be remembering the way he laughed, the way he drank his coffee, what kinds of books he liked to read. The things that made him a unique individual. This is what we should focus on when thinking about addiction. There are real people behind this pervasive, gut-wrenching problem. And those people need treatment, but they also need love.

Our goal of this blog is to share stories (both good and bad), thoughts and insights about our marriage and we would love for you to jump into the conversation.

The goal is to provide three things:1) HOPE for struggling couples that they are not alone.2) GROWTH in our marriages and our understanding of marriage.3) ENCOURAGEMENT to keep loving your spouse unconditionally.

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Jake and Melissa Kircher

Taken by Alex Christine Photography

About Us

Jake and Melissa were married on August 27, 2005.

Jake graduated with a B.A. from Gordon College, Wenham, MA in 2004. His studies were in Youth Ministry with a minor in Biblical and Theological Studies. He has been in ministry now for ten years and is a Licensed Minister. Currently, he is the Youth Pastor at Grace Community Church in New Canaan, CT. He also works with REACH Youth New England doing Regional Training, Communications and Web Design and is also the US Representative for We Love Our Youth Worker a ministry started in the UK. You can find out more about Jake's ministry at www.jakekircher.com.

Melissa graduated with a B.A. from Gordon College, Wenham, MA in 2005. She studied fine art. Melissa is currently a self-employed artist in the fields of painting, photo-processing, graphic design and writing. She recently completed her first novel and is currently seeking representation. Novel #2 is in the works. You can learn more about Melissa's writing at www.mkircher.com.

They currently live in Connecticut and have two children: a 2-year old boy who is crazy active and likes to bang on everything he can and a little girl who is just about to start crawling and make our lives really crazy. :)